Wireless communication typically involves the transmission of information between a mobile station, such as a cellular telephone or pager, and a fixed base station, such as, for example, a wideband digital base station which may accommodate multiple air standards simultaneously or MiniCell.TM.. The base station manages a communication link with a first mobile station to enable the transfer of communication data between the first mobile station and a second mobile station or a telephone network, such as a publicly switched local carrier or long distance exchange carrier.
Currently, a base station typically performs cell processing activities associated with initiating and maintaining a communication link to a mobile station using application specific digital signal processing and data transfer modules that operate in conjunction with a wideband data transfer bus. The wideband bus is ordinarily included in the base station as part of a general purpose telecommunication bus, and constructed with fixed and dedicated hardwired interconnections to modules on the backplane of a base station chassis. The modules interconnected with the wideband bus are organized as wideband data path cells that convert received analog radio frequency (RF) signals associated with communication links to digitized received communication data, such as telephone or voice data. The received communication data is suitably processed and routed to an indicated destination, such as a mobile station or a public telephone network. Further, the modules in a cell may operate in conjunction with the wideband bus to convert digitized communication data into a form suitable for RF transmission to a mobile station. The processing and routing of the communication data at the wideband bus of a base station and the associated modules may be performed in accordance with standard wireless protocols, such as, for example, TDMA or CDMA.
The typical wideband bus provides for management of several cells, each of which may establish and maintain communication links with several mobile stations which may be transferring communication data at different frequencies, respectively. In some circumstances, different cells on the wideband bus operate in accordance with distinct and unrelated air interface protocol standards.
Often, a base station already in operation cannot provide newly desired wireless services, such as establishing additional communication links for an existing cell or performing processing operations in accordance with newly developed-protocols. For example, the wideband bus design and interconnection arrangement of an existing base station may not have sufficient capacity to allow addition of another mobile station to an existing cell or may not have the capability to perform different processing operations associated with a new protocol feature, without requiring expensive and time-consuming hardware reconfiguration of the wideband bus and software reconfiguration of the base station. In such circumstances, the newly desired services may be obtained only by adding a new high cost base station to the wireless system, which may entail costly and time-consuming installation and configuration of the new base station along with reconfiguration of the existing base station for maintaining operating compatibility between the former and the latter.